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Software solutions for the business of law.Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:07:26 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.4A Blueprint for Legal Department Budgeting and Forecasting – Part 1http://businessoflawblog.com/2016/12/a-blueprint-for-legal-department-budgeting-and-forecasting-part-1/
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Are you accountable for tracking your legal department’s spend?

Are you currently using matter budgets, but don’t feel that you have a good way to predict your organization’s future legal spend accurately?

Or, is your legal department maybe one of the approximately 40 percent that don’t do any budgeting at all? If you fall into any one of these groups, I encourage you to read on.

I had the opportunity recently to address the South Central Texas Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel on the topic of corporate legal department budgeting and forecasting. In my presentation, I shared a number of insights related to these very issues. In this and a subsequent blog posting, I summarize my recent presentation for Business of Law Blog readers who are similarly challenged by the issues of budgeting and forecasting.

“Regardless of the reason, establishing a matter budget offers several benefits.”

Why Budget?

Legal departments that create budgets do so for a variety of compelling reasons. One of the more obvious motives is to allow the department to control its costs. For others, the driver may be the desire to improve planning or improve predictability. Still other departments may embrace budgets so that they can make more informed decisions, measure outside counsel performance or collaborate with outside counsel better. Another motivation to budget is the desire to strengthen the relationship with Finance and the rest of the organization.

Regardless of the reason, establishing a matter budget offers several benefits. These generally include the ability to manage legal spend, better allocation of resources and improved communication and collaboration with both corporate finance and outside counsel. I take a closer look at these and other benefits below.

“Because the value of a budget extends beyond simply the cost savings that can result, it is advantageous to create a budget no matter what the size of your legal spend.”

Six Key Benefits of Budgets

Because the value of a budget extends beyond simply the cost savings that can result, it is advantageous to create a budget no matter what the size of your legal spend. Having conducted numerous customer visits to understand their processes and challenges first hand, I’d like to share my observations regarding the key benefits of budgeting.

Better Cost Management: The most important benefit of budgets relates to cost management. If you think about a legal matter as analogous to financing a large consumer purchase you might make – a new car, for example – it’s clear that it would be foolish to agree to buy a particular model without having a sense of what it’s ultimately going to cost. Having a budget up front gives you the opportunity to evaluate potential options for managing costs.

Better Planning: Budgets help you improve planning by applying specified limits to legal spending. With these limits in mind, the legal department is better equipped to evaluate risks and litigation strategies.

More Predictability: Budgets can help improve financial predictability if you are tracking your spend vs. your budget carefully. For example, if you have a process for budgeting all of your litigation matters on an annual basis, you would be able to predict how much additional resources you might need for a similar litigation matter that spans more than a year.

Improved Decision Making: Tracking your legal spend against a budget helps you make more informed decisions. Suppose a law firm tells you that an M&A matter requires 15 depositions and a lot of research. That may get you thinking, why 15 depositions? Maybe three would be enough – and then you might want to get into a detailed conversation. Or, what if the law firm advises you that the SEC may not agree with an M&A filing and that the firm may have to write a detailed application/letter to them. This might prompt you to ask, “How likely is that to happen?” The law firm may say it’s very likely – so then you dig into the details to get a better understanding of the risk.

The bottom line is, because you were tracking spend against your budget, you were able to engage with your outside counsel early on and now have a better understanding of the risk involved before you decide which way to proceed. To get the most out of budgeting, you have to track and analyze your results. That’s where reporting and analytics can help when it comes to predictability and decision-making.

A Better Measure of Law Firm Performance: You are already talking to your outside counsel about your matters status. Adding another dimension to those discussions for budgets makes it even more robust and useful to both you and your outside counsel

Improved Relationship With Finance: Finance folks are numbers people. The ability to budget and forecast with greater accuracy goes a long way toward helping to establish the legal department’s credibility in the eyes of department heads and upper management. It can also help to foster better intra-departmental communication and cooperation.

Investing the time and effort required to establish matter budgets is critical for successful legal operation departments. In Part 2 of this article I’ll cover best practices for effective budgeting.

The 2016 Legal Technology Survey Report, published by the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC), documents a common misconception in the legal industry that technology assisted review software tools are only useful in large cases.

“There is a myth in our industry that predictive coding and other smart review tools are only useful and cost-effective in large-scale commercial litigation,” said Steve Ashbacher, vice president of litigation solutions with the LexisNexis software and technology business. “The truth is that new eDiscovery software technologies have emerged that make these review tools practical for a much wider range of cases than ever before.”

The LTRC survey found that roughly 15 percent of respondents have used predictive coding as a technique for reviewing eDiscovery materials, a finding that is lower than other recent industry reports, but likely a reflection of the fact that ABA surveys skew toward smaller law firms. Indeed, the LTRC report notes that the answers in its own survey split widely based on the size of the law firm: just 4 percent of firms with 2-9 attorneys said they’ve used predictive coding, while 35 percent of firms with 100+ attorneys have done so.

When the survey drilled down into explanations for what has prevented respondents from using predictive coding in eDiscovery, the number-one answer given (57 percent) was that the size of their cases didn’t warrant the use of the technology. The second most common reason cited (27 percent) was cost.

Ashbacher pointed out that new software tools – such as Lexis DiscoveryIQ, an eDiscovery enterprise software platform from LexisNexis – are reimagining how and when predictive coding can be used in the eDiscovery workflow.

“Our software design team has made it easier and more intuitive for litigation professionals to use the predictive coding tools in DiscoveryIQ, which enables this powerful technology to be put to work on corporate investigations and litigation matters of various sizes and budgets,” said Ashbacher.

The ABA Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) produced the 2016 Legal Technology Survey Report. For more than a decade, the LTRC has surveyed practicing attorneys about their technology choices to create this annual report. The survey is separated into six volumes: Technology Basics & Security; Law Office Technology; Litigation Technology & E-Discovery; Web and Communication Technology; Online Research; and Mobile Lawyers. Each volume features a trend report summarizing the year’s notable results, detailed charts and tables, and highlights from previous years.

The full survey report can be purchased from the ABA for $1,995 and individual volumes cost $350 each. To order a report, please click here.

“Don’t let clients determine the value of your work,” cautions Solo/Small Law Firm Practice Management Consultant and National Speaker for G&P Associates, Ann Guinn. Instead, Ms. Guinn suggests thinking about what discounting your legal services will mean to you as a small business owner, rather than what it will mean for your clients.

In other words— “Bill clients and get paid,” she says plainly.

Whether you’re a solo attorney just starting out, or looking to get a better handle of the business side of your growing law firm, Ms. Guinn regularly advises attorneys about better managing the business aspects of their law firms. By doing this, she believes attorneys can become more profitable without ever having to discount their legal services or compromising the quality of their services.

If getting paid what you’re worth sounds like a topic of interest, then stay tuned…

LexisNexis is offering a special promotion—a full year subscription to Firm Manager online practice management software for half off. If you sign up now, you can purchase Firm Manager software for just $250 for the entire year. Users will also be automatically registered for select CLE webinars, led by none other than legal practice management guru, Ann Guinn.

Those who sign up now will be able to participate and receive CLE credit for two upcoming December CLE webinars led by Ms. Guinn, including:

Ethical Billing for the Small Law Firm on December 8th

A 10-Point Check-Up for the Business Side of Your Practice on December 15th

According to internal LexisNexis data, solo and small firm attorneys, are missing out on up to 40 percent of their actual billable time due to inefficient time tracking and billing practices. However, firms don’t need to fall victim to inefficient time tracking and accounting practices or unnecessary discounting of their services as long as they have the right tools in place.

By signing up for Firm Manager, attorneys will have access to a myriad of valuable legal practice management features to help them work more effectively and most importantly, help them impact the firm’s bottom line. Here’s a look at some key features Firm Manager users will gain access to:

In response to customer requests, LexisNexis recently launched its new PCLaw Pro Certification training for users of all levels who want to master the software—and use it to take their law practice to its fullest potential.

Not only will graduates gain new skills and get insider tips about how to use PCLaw legal practice management software to the fullest, they will obtain an industry-recognized certification. Attendees will hone their skills with hands-on, instructor-led training sessions covering a gamut of topics, including:

Lawyers and Rates

Matter Management

Client Reports

Time and Fees

Trust Accounting

Budgeting

Month End Reporting

One of the most rewarding aspects of the training is showing both new and veteran users alike how to leverage the power of PCLaw to not only handle the day-to-day challenges that all law firms face, but how to use it to make important business decisions that can lead to higher profits and happier clients. Feedback on the new training series has been outstanding, and here are just a few of the positive comments attendees have shared:

“Duane (the instructor) was great— very personable and extremely knowledgeable. I enjoyed interacting and comparing notes with the other attendees. I now feel much more confident with PCLaw,” said Legal Assistant and PCLaw user Kim Morf.

“I was concerned the course would be too advanced for me being entry level but was pleasantly surprised. It was well broken down to address the uses of PCLaw—even to a layman. It was a wonderful and relaxing environment with an engaging group and instructor,” said Assistant Office Manager and PCLaw User, Nicki Burgess.

“This class [PCLaw Administrator Certification] was extremely helpful for me. I knew I was missing some things that PCLaw could do, and I was correct. Having the training as well as talking things through with the other students was great,” said Accountant and PCLaw user, Melissa C. Kimbrell

When you want to win new business for your firm – relationships matter! In a recent conversation, a highly successful attorney mentioned that the business development opportunities that work best for him are predicated on relationships. This attorney finds that people who know and trust him tend to give him business. Every professional should seriously consider how he or she would apply relationship intelligence to replace a key client – because one day they may take their business to another firm.

Since part of your role as a partner and attorney is to find your next work, relationship insights or relationship intelligence is critical to the future success of the firm. That’s why you need to understand the benefits of using a client relationship management system that delivers relationship insights.

What’s Different in Law and Professional Services Firms?

Client relationship management (CRM) or law firms and professional services organizations firms is very different from the generic corporate CRM model. This is because the business models of most firms differ widely from their corporate brethren. For example, firms do not sell discreet, manufactured goods or simple services – they market the skill, expertise and judgment of their professionals. In addition to the differences in what firms sell, there are also significant differences between professional services firms and their corporate brethren in terms of:

Who does the selling

How firms sell and,

Where and when firms sell.

This is why law and professional services firms need a solution that is designed to deliver the client information and insights a firm needs to help the firm nurture and maintain existing client relationships and develop new relationships – this is called Relationship Intelligence.

Client information your firm needs – delivered with ease

Relationship intelligence results when a firm can aggregate and easily access the firm’s collective knowledge about people, companies and relationships – as well as their experience and expertise. Smaller firms can deliver some level of relationship intelligence by sharing relationship knowledge during informal hallway or office conversations.

However, as a firm grows and expands geographically, a high level of human interaction across the firm is difficult to maintain – necessitating technology that delivers relationship intelligence firm wide.

What are the Benefits of Relationship Intelligence?

How can a firm utilize relationship intelligence to grow their business? Our new whitepaper, “Understanding Relationship Intelligence and its Benefits,” provides eight tangible examples of benefits law and professional services firms can enjoy once they can harness the firm’s collective relationship knowledge to deliver relationship intelligence with InterAction.

By delivering relationship intelligence with InterAction, the benefits firms can take advantage of include:

Limiting Client Defections through Client Management

Increasing Cross Sell and Upsell Revenues

Leveraging Relationships to Win New Business

Eliminating Missed Relationship Opportunities

Avoiding Embarrassing Losses from errors that can alienate clients or prospects

Reducing Relationship Losses Associated with Employee Turnover

Eliminating Inefficiencies Caused by Bad Data

Working the Way Your Firm Works.

Is your law or professional services firm is struggling harness the power of relationships to grow your business? If so, you will enjoy “Understanding Relationship Intelligence and its Benefits,” as it explains each of these benefits in detail and provides many thought-provoking examples of how relationship intelligence provides benefits to firms today.

Can your firm afford to limit your relationship intelligence?

This post is by Mark Weadon, a Senior Product Marketing Manager for LexisNexis InterAction.

How does a team of eight attorneys and just five support staff manage a legal caseload serving 26,000 people in 70 developments and 12,600 public housing units across Boston, Massachusetts? One might assume the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) would require a goliath sized legal team to manage its constantly growing legal caseload, however the opposite is the true for the BHA, which also happens to be New England’s largest public housing authority.

Rather employing additional attorneys and administrative support staff to handle its growing workload, the acting General Counsel of the BHA at the time, opted to invest in legal practice management software to do the job.

A move that Wilber Commodore, an employee of the BHA, says continues to pay itself forward today.

According to Mr. Commodore, the BHA’s legal department uses the system to create and store records for all of its non-transactional matters, including litigation cases, subpoenas, requests for public records and requests from throughout the BHA for legal advice. In other words, information on every action related to a matter goes straight into the electronic file, along with all relevant documents.

“We have a record of everything that comes through us,” says Mr. Commodore. Whether someone needs to know the status of a current matter, retrieve historical information or report on productivity in the legal department, that information is readily available.”

By storing all cases and their associated files electronically, the BHA legal team is not only able to work faster, but thanks to the technology, the legal department put an innovative approach in place to better manage lease enforcement cases that arise when public housing authority tenants haven’t paid their rent. In addition, the system provides templates for several forms used in BHA proceedings and automatically pulls the data needed to complete those forms from the database. This time savings, says Mr. Commodore, helps keep overhead costs down.

“A paralegal can manage this process, generating the documents for the attorney, who just has to review and sign them,” Commodore says. This efficiency gain allows the department to handle an increasing number of cases without adding more attorneys.”

According to Mr. Commodore, on top of recalling important case-related information instantly, the legal practice management software is also automated with the BHA’s calendar of court appearances which comes in particularly handy when an administrative question related to a court appearance or case inquiry arises.

“If we get a call from someone in the Housing Authority — such as the administrator — who wants to know the status of the case, we can retrieve that information easily from the calendar case notes,” says Ms. Commodore.

The BHA legal department, he adds, uses a similar approach when fielding requests for public records and keeping track of that information.

“Once we open a case and put the information in, we can generate the form letters we need,” he says.

In essence, whenever a request for a record comes through, members of the BHA staff can simply attach an electronic copy of those records to the file, so the department has a full history of the request and the BHA’s response.

As an added bonus, outside of the legal department, members of the BHA’s grievance and appeals also benefit by using the technology to manage its hearings. This is important if and when a tenant is about to lose housing in the public housing program, or when the BHA determines an applicant ineligible for assistance.

Today, the BHA runs like a well-oiled machine and members of the legal team and additional BHA staff members are able to work more efficiently and effectively. Most importantly, however, the BHA continues to keep a tight lid on overhead costs and, in doing so, is able to improve the service it provides to the residents of Boston.

Note: The Business of Law Blog will return on Monday, November 28, following a brief Thanksgiving holiday hiatus.

No matter how you look at it, we all have much to be thankful for—friends, family, freedom and the rule of law, to name just a few of the many things that come to mind.

The LexisNexis Business of Law Blog is also thankful for you – the members of the legal community who value the content we publish here. On behalf of the editorial and design team, as well as the many guest contributors who help keep this blog running, we thank you for making us a part of your daily reading habits.

We wish you a safe, restful and rewarding holiday weekend. We look forward to resuming our sharing of legal industry news, thoughts and insights with you next week.

Providers of eDiscovery services to law firms need to be technically proficient, adept at using software, cost-conscious and focused on quality, among other things. But according to one leading eDiscovery firm, there is another ingredient that is sometimes overlooked.

“Our view is that eDiscovery is not a technical issue, it’s a legal issue with a technical solution,” said Dana Conneally, chief strategy officer for Evidox Corp., a boutique eDiscovery company based in Boston. “We believe that part of our role is to educate our law firm clients about the rules of eDiscovery, the new technologies in the marketplace and other important elements of the process.”

To back up that perspective, Evidox focuses on “issue spotting” for their law firm clients. Their team includes four full-time attorneys on staff who advise clients on both digital forensics and eDiscovery challenges that emerge in a wide range of litigation and investigations.

“For example, one of our clients was asked to deal with a government investigation that was sprung on them at the last minute,” recalled Conneally. “They had about a terabyte of data that needed to be preserved, then the government said that every piece of information needed to be analyzed for relevancy.”

The government agency was contending that if even just 20 percent of the data was relevant to the investigation – a huge volume of electronic information – it would justify a full-scale review.

“Within a few days, we were able to process that entire data set, run searches, put together some key metrics about what was actually in the data set, and hand that information over to our client so they could go back to the government agency,” said Conneally. “The statistical analysis of the data set indicated that the responsive rate was actually less than one percent. As the initial sample set evolved, that figure grew slightly, but was still a far cry from the 20 percent responsive rate the government had predicted.”

Evidox’s client was able to use the metrics provided from the early data analysis to push back on the government requests and show them they were willing to take the dispute to the court for resolution.

“When you have actual hard statistics to go back with, it changes everything,” said Conneally.

Conneally’s team relied on the LexisNexis Early Data Analyzer software tool to do the heavy lifting required with the Terabyte data set, which allowed them to “issue spot” for the client and provide the hard evidence to support their legal arguments.

“We’ve been using Early Data Analyzer for about three years now,” said Conneally. “We’ve found that, as data size continues to mushroom, Early Data Analyzer allows us to make that crucial first pass on a large data set.”

The primary purpose of early data analysis is not to learn every fact or review all documents, but rather to gain enough information about the stakes in front of you in order for the litigators to decide how to proceed, according to Steve Ashbacher, vice president of litigation solutions with the LexisNexis software and technology business.

“The more that your eDiscovery software tools can help you obtain that knowledge, the less money and time you will need to spend on setting your case strategy,” said Ashbacher.

]]>http://businessoflawblog.com/2016/11/issue-spotting-for-law-firms-using-ediscovery-tech-in-government-investigations/feed/0Demo PCLaw or Time Matters for a Chance to Win an Amazon Echo or Other Great Prizeshttp://businessoflawblog.com/2016/11/demo-pclaw-or-time-matters-for-a-chance-to-win-an-amazon-echo-or-other-great-prizes/
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It’s that time of year again … we can almost smell the turkey roasting in the oven and the apple pie bubbling over with delight, which can only mean one thing, Thanksgiving is coming! While most of us are getting ready to enjoy, arguably, America’s most anticipated meal, the impending Thanksgiving holiday also means the season of giving is upon us.

Why not give yourself and the members of your law firm the gift of greater efficiency by completing a demo of the latest release of LexisNexis® PCLaw® practice management software, this holiday season. While you’re at it, there’s also a chance to win an Amazon Echo or other great prizes. Here are the details:

Simply, complete the registration requirements here and sign up for a chance to participate in the LexisNexis® PCLaw® 2016 Demo Sweepstakes. Not only will you learn about how the latest release of PCLaw all-in-one practice management solution can help drive efficiency in your firm, alleviate malpractice worries and better demonstrate your value to clients with improved billing, but by doing so you will be entered for a chance to win a great prize!

Yes, you got that right, by completing a PCLaw demo, you will be entered for a chance to win an Amazon Echo or other great prizes. Here’s a sneak peek:

1st Prize-Amazon Echo

2nd Prize-$100 Amex Gift Card

3rd Prize-$50.00 Amex Gift Card

4th Prize-$25.00 Gourmet Coffee Card

You get the idea, but wait, the fun is not over. There is more.

For those attorneys seeking to get a better handle on organizing emails faster, tracking time more effectively, managing busy calendars, and finding case files in no time, there is the opportunity to demo the new LexisNexis® Time Matters® 16 customizable legal practice management software. Simply complete the registration requirements here to enter and sign up for a chance to participate in the LexisNexis® Time Matters® 2016 Demo Sweepstakes.

Time is of the essence. To be entered into the sweepstakes, you must schedule your PCLaw or Time Matters demo on or before 5:00 pm EST on December 27, 2016 and complete the demo on or before 5:00 pm EST on December 30, 2016 to be eligible to win.

Perhaps no topic has attracted as much attention – and angst – in the legal profession this year than data security. One strategy that many corporate clients are employing to try to minimize their risk profile in working with outside law firms and their third-party information service providers is to require them to undergo intensive data security audits.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been recapping some of the highlights of that discussion with a series of blog posts. Those posts shared some of the general trends in data security audits, explored the art of interpreting data security audits, described the idea of “co-education” among the various players in data security audits, and taken a look at how law firms can collaborate effectively with their outside partners in order to deploy the optimal data security solutions.

This week, we conclude our series by assessing how law firms can deal with restriction of access to data and leveraging data security resources as efficiently as possible.

“Certain data that is case-related just can’t be made available to unauthorized people,” said Calhoun. “For example, health care data can only be made available for the limited purpose for which it’s needed. There are certain types of data that have to be restricted.”

But for law firms, this serious burden need not fall on the shoulders of their own IT personnel.

“Firms really need to understand the different levels of access and the requirements around the protection of data, but it falls on information service providers to help law firms focus on their business by making sure that we secure their data and manage it in a way that protects access,” said Hansen. “We have to build the right access controls so that all of this is easy for law firms to do.”

“We’ve seen a lot of our clients starting to look at their contractors or others coming to do work on behalf of the firm and look at the proper ways to provide them with access to their systems,” said Norris. “That’s one good way to keep data security intact by making sure that you control the things you can control on your own premises and in your own systems. This is all a matter of risk management.”

Moreover, for insurance companies that underwrite this cyber-risk profile, it’s important to be able to demonstrate a serious commitment to access controls.

“We want to see that law firms have compliance procedures in place and protocols in place to follow those procedures, but also that you have protocols in place to make sure the people you’re entrusting with your information have controls that are as good or better than your own,” said Laderman. “We also like to see that IT is involved with auditing some of the vendors so they can verify that those vendors have controls in place, as opposed to just a cost-based decision where they’re choosing the lowest cost vendor.”

The good news in sorting through these challenges is that many law firms already have the tools they need to be well-prepared for data security audits . . . they just need to leverage the third-party information resources in the cupboard.

“I think the important takeaway here is that if you’ve got LexisNexis already under your roof and you have NetDocs or another document management system already under your roof, then you already have a significant part of the data security solution,” said Calhoun. “You don’t have to go out and reinvent solutions for data security for law firms because those solutions already exist and many are already under your roof right now. The question is using what you have and realizing you may already have the resources you need in terms of the issues that data security auditors are concerned about, simply by turning to those people who are already your business partners.”